When a customer drops off a load of clothes to be laundered, the cleaner writes up a ticket giving the customer a portion thereof as a receipt. The cleaner keeps one portion of the ticket as his inventory and receipt and places the main portion of the ticket with the clothes. The cleaner removes a separable portion of the ticket with an identification number and attaches one of these separable portions to each of the items of laundry for tracking purposes.
The laundry items are sorted and washed in lots to efficiently use the laundry equipment. In the case of shirts, a machine can handle a hundred or so at one time. Each machine load is called a lot, and within each lot the shirts are in no particular order. Before the shirts leave the cleaning area, they must be starched, ironed and assembled with the ticket with which they arrived. Accordingly, it will be appreciated that it would be highly desirable to be able to easily reassemble the finished laundry with the proper ticket.
A problem with the tagging process is that a worker must staple a separable tag to each shirt. This is typically done with two staples to ensure that the tag stays attached to the shirt during the washing and ironing. Even when being extremely careful, a worker is likely to staple the tag insecurely or staple his finger. The result of such an error is that a customer receives the wrong item or no item at all, or work time is lost which decreases efficiency. It is desirable to have a tag that is easy to attach securely and does not present an opportunity for a worker to staple his finger.